


Absent Narrative

by faemood



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cecil is Mostly Human, Gen, Light Angst, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 03:04:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15832455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faemood/pseuds/faemood
Summary: There are moments when he is not himself. That is not an excuse or a euphemism. It just is.





	Absent Narrative

Cecil does not see what is in front of him. His eyes, pearl-white, glistening, tinged pink like some far-off, thrumming portal, do not see what is in front of them.   
  
"And now, traffic-" 

He does not pause. Not that you could hear. You do not hear him pause any more than you hear the time it takes for the radio to turn a thousand sparkling fragments into sound. What he does, he does well.

"There is a crowd in distant city…"   
  
_ billboards on buildings. each letter an awful curved fang, a claw, a wet, soundless breath. the immediate sensations of the hunt as felt by prey. running. running. _   
  
"They are surrounded by billboards in the square, on every corner. They are cornered for the meat of their attention. The hairs on the back of their necks prickle as one. They are a herd. This is their instinct: to run. To run wildly."   
  
_ high places, glass windows, vertigo. men in suits with straight, precise teeth. like the letters of a contract.  _ __   
__   
_ anger, reckless, blood pulsing. the crowd, one bloodstream. _ __   
__   
__ gazelle-bucks-lion-off-cliff.    
  
What he does is not always easy, but it is done smoothly, sonorously.   
  
"But they are not prey. They scramble to the top of the food chain, to the offices where decisions are made - where letters are straighened into contracts, curved into fangs. They push these decision-makers straight through their beautiful views.   
  
"Then they are not free. We are never free, nor should we be. But they are not hunted. This has been traffic."

What he does, he does well.

* * *

 

But, there are moments.

Cecil is hunched over the sink, fingers splayed and palms flat, all his weight on his wrists. The lights are off in the bathroom. He knows nothing. He says nothing.

The mirror is covered, and he is safe. He wouldn't know if he was in danger.

He is not human. He is an incarnation - he is the moment you raise the volume suddenly and something behind the sound crackles, squeals,  _ tears _ -

His knees give, his weight barely catches on his elbows, jarring on the counter. His eyes go from shut to clenched.

It so rarely hurts. But there are moments, and there are limits.

* * *

  
  
Cecil flexes his fingers, gripping, releasing. He continues to  _ do _ this, but his hand does not respond after a point. His hand is still, around the base of his microphone.

_ swarming. rushing. sweat beading, flowing. the thousand-bodies, in-out-in-out of panting. gnashing teeth, gnashing voices. gnashing teeth, closing jaw. like a vise. like a vise. _   
  
He begins, "Listeners, I think it's about time for - quivering in the dirt like the worms you-"

_ sand-down-throat roughness and wrongness. lungs-without-air dizziness, emptiness. _   
  
He speaks around his thoughts, which flex and release, coil and slacken, which are his or not. 

"-ahem, for a quick look at today's weather. Give yourself to the Devouring-"    
  
His arm jerks. He smacks the button. He is off the air, for a minute or a week or however long it will take for them to avert crisis. He never knows that it will not be forever.

He never knows; he never trusts. But something tells him.

* * *

  
Cecil is in bed. Carlos is beside him. Carlos is around him. Cecil cannot feel his own breathing, so he does not know if he is breathing, or not. He cannot assume that he is.   
  
But he can feel Carlos breathing. There is neat, clean cotton pressed against Cecil's side.    
He gathers himself from the distant places he was pushed to by this week's alien presence, from the far reaches of his skull where he was surely forced, or, or not. 

  
Maybe he belongs there. Maybe he merely spiraled out into a million pieces because he is not one whole or one entity or one person any more than Night Vale is.   
  
Carlos places a hand on the curve of Cecil's spine. Carlos does not know what woke him. He does not wake easily, but he is glad something did it.

  
Carlos draws breath. Cecil feels the shift of organs through the scientist's skin, then his own. Carlos - sweet Carlos, absent any trace of clairvoyance, can tell what Cecil is thinking.   
  
"Ceec..." Carlos shifts, bringing his lips closer to Cecil's ear. "I don't know what you are thinking, but I know that I love you no matter what that is. I know that you are upset - I can tell because you always are when you turn in on yourself like this. You don't need to tell me why. You don't need to say anything right now. I love you, even when you are silent."

Oh. Well. More miraculous and more ordinary; Carlos does not know what Cecil thinks, but he doesn't need to, to find the right words.

Cecil can't speak, but it hardly matters. He wouldn't have, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Something I wrote on my phone at 4 in the morning, but I think it turned out alright. It's an exercise in playing with certain concepts.


End file.
